Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Josephine Garris was born in Ohio in eighteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: but she was raised in Indiana. She had a modest
Speaker 1: life growing up, but flowing through her veins was the
Speaker 1: knack for inventing. Literally. Her father, John was a civil engineer,
Speaker 1: and her grandfather invented the first patented steamboats in the US.
Speaker 1: Although little is known about her upbringing, we do know
Speaker 1: that Josephine eventually married a man named William Cochrane in
Speaker 1: October of eighteen fifty eight. William had gone off to
Speaker 1: California to try his luck with the gold rush, a
Speaker 1: return home empty handed the year before, he and Josephine
Speaker 1: tied the knot. He eventually became a successful merchant and
Speaker 1: a politician within the Democratic Party, and they had two
Speaker 1: daughters named Hallie and Catherine. William's fortune continued to grow,
Speaker 1: and in eighteen seventy the family moved into a sizeable
Speaker 1: home just outside of Chicago. It was perfectly suited for
Speaker 1: hosting dinner parties with other members of the city's elites.
Speaker 1: But there were two big problems that Josephine still faced
Speaker 1: even with all that money. First, her husband had a
Speaker 1: nasty drinking problem and it was affecting their family life.
Speaker 1: And Second, despite her elevated status, she was still in
Speaker 1: charge of cleaning up after each get together. After one
Speaker 1: dinner party, Josephine was in the kitchen washing dishes when
Speaker 1: she noticed something. Some of them were chipped. There was
Speaker 1: an inescapable problem of hand washing them. Some of them
Speaker 1: got dropped or were knocked against other cups or plates
Speaker 1: and wound up losing pieces. Plus, she hated being relegated
Speaker 1: to the kitchen to clean up at the end of
Speaker 1: the night. She was sure other housewives hated it too,
Speaker 1: so she got the thinking. Sadly, in eighteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: William passed away after losing his long battle with alcoholism,
Speaker 1: leaving the widow to Josephine with his hefty debts which
Speaker 1: she needed to pay off, so she got to work.
Speaker 1: She converted the shed in her backyard into a workshop
Speaker 1: where she started tinkering on her new invention. She also
Speaker 1: got a local mechanic named George Butters to help her.
Speaker 1: With George's technical know how, Josephine was able to construct
Speaker 1: a prototype of her new machine, which she called the
Speaker 1: Cochrane Dishwasher. She filed the patent for it in December
Speaker 1: of eighteen eighty five. Others had tried to automate the
Speaker 1: dishwashing process in the past. A man named Joel Houghton
Speaker 1: had been among the first with his wooden version that
Speaker 1: he cranked by hand. It was a popular idea, and
Speaker 1: someone else tried again fifteen years later with another model
Speaker 1: that used a hand crank, but Josephine's was something revolutionary.
Speaker 1: She had measured every plate, cup, fork, knife, and spoon
Speaker 1: so they each had a perfectly sized home in her machine.
Speaker 1: Once filled, the compartments rotated around a copper boiler with
Speaker 1: help from a motor as the dishes were blasted with
Speaker 1: SuDS from below. And unlike other designs that used harsh
Speaker 1: brushes to get the dishes clean, Josephine's version used hot,
Speaker 1: pressurized water to do the trick, just like today's modern dishwashers. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Josephine had put her cart before the horse, so to speak.
Speaker 1: She was so busy trying to get her invention off
Speaker 1: the ground she didn't consider its cost to produce. Her
Speaker 1: machine retailed for as much as one hundred dollars, and
Speaker 1: that was too rich for most people. Plus few were
Speaker 1: able to supply it with enough hot water to get
Speaker 1: those dishes clean, so Josephine and her new company decided
Speaker 1: to market it to larger entities instead, like restaurants at hotels.
Speaker 1: She was a single woman running her own business at
Speaker 1: a time when most women were tending to their homes,
Speaker 1: but after her debut at the Chicago World's Fair in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three, none of that mattered. While other companies
Speaker 1: folded due to the economic depression that had occurred that year,
Speaker 1: Josephine was able to sell her dishwasher to businesses in
Speaker 1: need of a way to mass clean their cookwar. She
Speaker 1: and George opened a factory in eighteen ninety eight, capturing
Speaker 1: the entire American market north to south and east to west,
Speaker 1: But she didn't get to see the dishwasher's adoption in
Speaker 1: households all over the world. Josephine died in nineteen thirteen,
Speaker 1: when she was seventy four years old, but her legacy
Speaker 1: lives on today. Her company was sold to mixer maker
Speaker 1: Kitchen Aid in nineteen twenty six, which was eventually absorbed
Speaker 1: into the Whirlpool Corporation. So the next time you load
Speaker 1: up that stainless steel box in your kitchen, you know,
Speaker 1: the one with all those buttons and dials on it,
Speaker 1: you can thank Josephine Cochrane, a b brilliant inventor who
Speaker 1: also hated doing the dishes. Let's be honest for a moment.
Speaker 1: If the last few years have taught us anything, it's
Speaker 1: that Americans love a good conspiracy theory. Maybe a little
Speaker 1: too much in some cases. But as bizarre as this
Speaker 1: might sound, these outlandish theories aren't a new phenomenon. The
Speaker 1: oldest conspiracy theories in American history revolve around the Freemasons,
Speaker 1: a name that's familiar to many a national treasure fan.
Speaker 1: The Freemasons were founded in the Middle Ages by Stonemasons,
Speaker 1: but during the Enlightenment they focused more on religious tolerance
Speaker 1: and the sciences than actual physical building projects. They're not
Speaker 1: really a secret society, although they do have their own rituals, symbols,
Speaker 1: and handshakes that would put any summer campers to shame.
Speaker 1: The Masons might have i had a great deal of
Speaker 1: influence in the founding of America, from the Bill of
Speaker 1: Rights to the building of Washington, d c. Itself. It
Speaker 1: also helped that Masons had a history of opposing royal claims,
Speaker 1: possibly helping to move the revolution along. After all, when
Speaker 1: a bunch of wealthy white men get together to discuss
Speaker 1: philosophy and decide they don't want to pay taxes anymore,
Speaker 1: anything is possible right now. While most of this doesn't
Speaker 1: sound particularly malevolent to us, the Masons had plenty of detractors.
Speaker 1: The Catholic Church was no fan of Theirs, forbidding any
Speaker 1: Catholic from becoming a Mason, which was pretty easy to
Speaker 1: enforce in a white Anglo Saxon Protestant colonial America. Still,
Speaker 1: the secrecy of the Masons weighed on many people's minds,
Speaker 1: including Captain William Morgan of Batavia, New York. Morgan was
Speaker 1: born in Virginia and allegedly a veteran of the War
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve, fighting directly under Andrew Jackson. Although we
Speaker 1: have no one's word on this except his. Morgan spent
Speaker 1: some time in Little York, Canada, where he operated an
Speaker 1: extremely successful brewery and apparently was inducted into the Freemasons.
Speaker 1: He made no mention of those connections when a fire
Speaker 1: burned his brewery down and he was forced to sell
Speaker 1: off most of his worldly goods to avoid debtors prison.
Speaker 1: From Little York, he moved to Rochester, New York, then Batavia,
Speaker 1: where he became a bricklayer and stonecutter and developed an
Speaker 1: impressive drinking problem and gambling addiction. Morgan claimed that he
Speaker 1: was made a Master Mason, the highest level, while he
Speaker 1: was living in Canada, although again there's nothing in Mason's
Speaker 1: extensive records to prove this. While he was active at
Speaker 1: a lodge in Rochester and tried to build lodges and
Speaker 1: chapters in Batavia, he was unsuccessful, and his constant badgering
Speaker 1: led to other members taking a dislike to Morgan. There
Speaker 1: were even questions about his character than maintaining his membership.
Speaker 1: When the Masons officially ousted him, Morgan soured on the
Speaker 1: organization for good. Deciding that he was going to get revenge,
Speaker 1: He decided the best way to do This was to
Speaker 1: publish a tell all about the Masons, teaming up with
Speaker 1: a local printer named David Kate Miller and two other
Speaker 1: guys to get it done, Which is how, in the
Speaker 1: summer of eighteen twenty six, for a dollar a copy,
Speaker 1: you could get yourself a glimpse into the rarefied secret
Speaker 1: world of the Freemasons. For such a morally superior country.
Speaker 1: Americans certainly love a scandal, and reactions to early advertisements
Speaker 1: seemed to indicate this book could be a bestseller, at
Speaker 1: least until funny things started happening around the print shop.
Speaker 1: You see a series of fires broke out in Miller's
Speaker 1: shop that summer. Morgan blamed the Masons, accusing them of
Speaker 1: trying to silence him. The Masons blamed Morgan and his
Speaker 1: drinking problem. Next, Morgan was arrested for a series of thefts.
Speaker 1: Now he was in dire financial straits, but even as
Speaker 1: he was released from prison after lacking of evidence of
Speaker 1: one theft, he was arrested again. An innkeeper suddenly decided
Speaker 1: to demand Morgan to pay what he was owed. Bail
Speaker 1: was posted by a mysterious benefact on September twelfth, and
Speaker 1: Morgan was promptly picked up outside the jail by an
Speaker 1: unknown group of men. He was bundled into a carriage
Speaker 1: and managed to shout murder before being whisked away. William
Speaker 1: Morgan was never seen again, well, at least not alive.
Speaker 1: In October of eighteen twenty seven, his body washed up
Speaker 1: on the shores of Lake Ontario and was identified by
Speaker 1: his wife. Although there was always some debate about that,
Speaker 1: the investigation, which had been going on for some time,
Speaker 1: became squarely focused on the Freemasons. In response, they protested
Speaker 1: that while yes, an independent faction did kidnap Morgan, all
Speaker 1: they did was give him five hundred dollars and set
Speaker 1: him loose in Canada, far away from all of them.
Speaker 1: They did not kill him. Several men, though, were arrested
Speaker 1: and even convicted of kidnapping, but no one was ever
Speaker 1: charged with murder. Miller followed through on his friend's vindictive
Speaker 1: final wishes and published the expose. Thanks to the disappearance,
Speaker 1: the book was a hit. In the coming decades, the
Speaker 1: Freemasonry became a byword for wealthy, corruption and cruelty, more
Speaker 1: like a cult than a philosophical society. On July fourth
Speaker 1: of eighteen twenty eight citizens of Le Roy, New York,
Speaker 1: published the Declaration of Independence from the Masonic Institution, and
Speaker 1: anti Masonic movements far outstripped anything Morgan could have dreamt of.
Speaker 1: They even led to a creation of the first third
Speaker 1: party in American politics, the Anti Masonic Party. As a result,
Speaker 1: Masonic membership in the country plummeted, and while no member
Speaker 1: of the party ever held high office, the political landscape
Speaker 1: had changed. As for William Morgan, although his murder remains unsolved,
Speaker 1: he is not forgotten. A stone column with a statue
Speaker 1: of William on top was raised as a tribute to
Speaker 1: the martyr. He faces away from the nearby cemetery, turning
Speaker 1: his back to the gravestones covered in Masonic symbols, one
Speaker 1: final jab at the community that had turned their backs
Speaker 1: on him. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the worldoflore dot com, and until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.